Don't be daunted by the pineapple's prickly shell -- peeling the fruit is easy in these simple steps.

This photo does what neither a fruit cup nor cocktail with an umbrella ever could: It makes pineapple look damn sexy. Or, more accurately, smokin' hot. Taken by Another Pint Please... at Flickr, it presents a strong case for the addition of grill marks to any food: They're the edible version of great highlights or the perfect shade of lipstick. These pineapples were apparently marinated in rum and then used as the basis for an upside down cake, which is possibly the best thing to happen to the fruit -- next to grill marks, of course.

[Via Flickr]

When I was in Mexico, I tried a simple sweet and spicy dessert - chunks of pineapple sprinkled with dried chili flakes and salt, and drizzled with limes. A pineapple can be prepared for a complicated dessert or for something as simple as fruit salad.

This exquisite tropical fruit can be grilled or roasted. Recently, I tried Martha Stewart's recipe for grilled pineapple with coconut sorbet. It's the perfect antidote to the cold wintry weather. Pineapples work well in desserts due to its unique tropical sweetness and its bright yellow color. I'll never forget the light fluffy cake toppled with pineapples that I tried last May at Pierre Hermé in Paris.

Below are 8 recipes for pineapple desserts:

1. Chilled Pineapple Mousse with Pistachios
2. Roasted Pineapple with Star Anise Pineapple Sorbet
3. Caramelized-Pineapple Baked Alaskas
4. Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
5. Pineapple-Coconut Napoleons with Mascarpone Cream and Pineapple Syrup
6. Carrot and Pineapple Cake
7. Roasted Pineapple Milkshake
8. Coconut Ice Cream with Warm Rum Glazed Pineapple

What are some of your favorite ways to prepare pineapples in dessert?

Oh, the pineapple. What a majestic fruit. On the outside, it looks like something you probably shouldn't eat, but the inside is -- well, you know. Delicious and totally unique.

Love pineapple but hate the mess of hacking one up to get at the succulent fruit? I have a solution! And no, it's not a pineapple cross-bred with a yam, or a dish towel, or anything. It's the Vacu Vin Pineapple Slicer.

The Vacu Vin Pineapple Slicer cuts your pineapple into rings and leaves the shell intact. Click through the gallery to watch how it takes you from solid fruit to slices and the perfect booze-vessel. And then buy one for $9.95 on amazon.com.

Several months ago, I discovered the deliciousness that is fruit spread with really good quality ricotta cheese. I discovered this by accident, during a tipsy evening with a friend when I inadvertently dipped an apple slice into the bowl of cheese. One taste and for the rest of the evening it was all we ate until the cheese was all gone.

One caveat is that this doesn't work with that grainy ricotta you get from the grocery store. You need to find the stuff that is available at cheese and specialty shops. Here in Philly, I get it at Claudio's, a cheese shop located in the Italian Market. It is super-creamy (I imagine it has a much higher fat content than regular ricotta) and when combined with fruit, becomes special in a way I am not totally able to articulate.

Last night I cut a pineapple up into spears and took it, along with a small container of this special ricotta, to a dinner with friends. It was one of several dessert options and yet was one of the favorites, because it was a change from the sweet (but delicious) baked goods. You can use your imagination to determine what other fruit might go well with it, I haven't tried it, but have a suspicion it would be fantastic with peaches and nectarines.

photo by Marisa McClellan

A few years ago I was in South Africa and stopped by the local Woolworths. Woolworths in South Africa is not the same as the US stores. It is a high end department store affiliated to Marks and Spencer in the United Kingdom, with an amazing food store inside. One of the first things I saw were these tiny little pineapples the size of large baseballs. I bought a dozen since they were both inexpensive by local rates, and with the incredible exchange rate of dollars for rand they cost me pennies. They were the most amazing pineapples I ever tasted. Sweet, but even more so, full of intense pineapple flavor. I tried to ration them out when I got back onto my ship but when I offered tastes to a few of my friends the matter was settled. They were gone within hours of leaving port. They were so good I dreamed about them off and on for weeks. When I eventually got back home to the US a few months later I did some research and found out they were the Queen Victoria breed and that until recently they couldn't be found outside South Africa, basically because they went bad so fast. Further reading told me that a few years ago they started shipping them to Europe upon occasion but they were very rare.

Last week we looked at how to make some low fat oatmeal cookies that were just as good as their full-fat counterparts – not to mention that they are better for you. This week, instead of choosing a recipe that needed to have something replaced, as the applesauce stood in for some of the butter in the cookies, the recipe is a cake that already has a no-added-fat base. Basically, instead of relying on a richer butter cake base, this version of pineapple upside down cake uses a sponge cake as the base.

I know that it has been a while since I first mentioned my pineapple plant. If you recall, I was having some difficulty growing it because I followed less-than-wonderful directions when I began my quest. Thanks to the support of several excellent commenters, I decided to give it another go. Unfortunately, after the first few weeks, it looked as though the plant might not make it. I had it potted and outdoors in a sunny place, but it was first met with unseasonable cold then a massive heat wave. Some of the leaves began to brown and I figured that I had yet another failed plant on my hands.

I failed to pay close attention to it for a few weeks and, when I looked closely yesterday, what did I see? New growth at the center of the plant! You can see the contrast between the new leaves and the outer ones in the picture.

Who knows if it will ever bear any fruit for me, but frankly I'm pleased just to know that I don't have a "brown thumb" when it comes to pineapple growing.

Last year I tried to plant a pineapple. Actually, I tried three times. Each time, I bought a nice, fresh, organic pineapple at Whole Foods and, after eating the fruit itself, I prepped the crown for planting. The first time, I left some of the fruit attached to the crown and the plant did not do so well. After finding this nifty guide online, I learned that I should have cleaned away any remaining bits of fruit before planting, as the way the fruit decomposes in the soil would is not conducive to growth. Scratch plant number one.

Following the directions from the same guide, I cut away the stem to expose the "root buds" on the crown. The website also recommended drying the crown for several days before planting. Seven days later, my crown was clearly dead and unfit for planting. Two strikes.

Undeterred, I trimmed a third crown, dried it for only one day (a warm day) and popped the top into some potting soil. I made sure it had light, tried to keep it warm (even in winter) and I didn't over-water it. And yet it looks exactly the same as it did a year ago: some of the leaves are a bit brown, others are still green and it clearly has not gotten any larger. I'm reasonably certain that it isn't dead, and yet I have real doubts as to whether it will ever progress beyond its current state.

Depressed about my pineapple prospects, I searched for a couple more resources and finally found someone in Southern California who has successfully grown pineapples! While this has renewed my hopes about growing my own, I am still wondering whether the project is worth it. How many times should you try before you give up on growing a plant?

I came up with this recipe for pineapple margaritas when I was making my pineapple-jicama salsa last week. I was already thinking that margaritas would be a good thing to serve with the grilled salmon and salsa dish and, when I ended up with a lot of extra pineapple juice, things just fell into place. These margaritas are a bit sweeter than the average plain margarita, but they still have the tang of lime and a bit of kick from the tequila. I would normally salt the rim of my classes, but sugaring the rim of the glass works better for this drink, and it's easier to do than it looks. Just moisten the rim of your glass, either with water or a bit of pineapple juice, and dip it into some sugar that is spread evenly on a small plate. Garnish with a slice of pineapple and you're ready for happy hour!

Pineapple Margaritas
2/3 cup pineapple juice
1/3 cup margarita mix
1/3 cup tequila
1/6 cup triple sec
2 tbsp fresh lime juice

Shake with ice and serve in ice filled, sugar-rimmed glasses.

Makes 2 drinks.

[Photo and recipe by Nicole Weston]

Fresh Del Monte Produce, Inc. will end its pineapple growing operations in Hawaii in roughly two years, according to a recent AP article. Del Monte, which has grown pineapples in Hawaii since 1916, said it would now be cheaper to buy the fruit on the open market than to continue growing, marketing and distributing the fruit themselves. The final crop of Del Monte pineapple, set to go in the ground later this month, will produce fruit until mid 2008.

Have you even wanted to pick just one food and eat it all day long? That, in very basic terms, is the gimmick of the Flavor Point Diet, a new weight loss strategy by researcher Dr. David Katz of Yale University.

The diet is based on the theory that we are overloading our palates with different flavors and are consequently so interested in them that we are never satisfied. According to the analogy given in the book, if we tempt ourselves with a taste of something, we will never be satisfied until we have a lot of it. The more flavors we allow ourselves, the more flavors we will want to eat. Dr. Katz says that by focusing on one "flavor intense" food each day, cravings can be overcome.

The diet calls for having a different flavor each day - pineapple on Monday, apple day on Tuesday, thyme on Wednesday, and so on. The sample menu for Apple Day calls for such meals as a smoothie for breakfast and an apple fennel barley salad for lunch. The total calorie count of the day is under 1500 and though the diet specifically claims that it involves "No Measuring Portions" and no restrictions on what you can eat, it still calls for 1/2 cup of applesauce for the snack. Another menu calls for a "snack" of 5 crackers, with no lunch on that day. The 6 bran pretzel sticks and 1/4 cup cottage cheese that serves as a snack on thyme day is another that sounds as though it involves both counting and measuring, even if its not specifically calories.

This diet is nothing new. It's simply the common sense of not eating too much disguised with a weak attempt at flavoring.

Brownie sundaes are so incredibly good, but don’t you feel just a wee bit kindergarten when you serve it as a dessert after an ooh-la-la dinner?

Yeah, me neither. It’s a brownie sundae for God’s sake.

But still, changing it up a little with a slightly less sweet gingerbread in place of the brownie and topping your vanilla ice cream with pineapple rum sauce instead of hot fudge feels a little more grown up. Just keep the aerosol can of whipped cream and those horrible red vinyl things called “cherries” in the fridge until your kid’s birthday party.

We know you've been waiting for it: How to turn a pineapple upside down cake into a nearly guilt-free dessert and still have it taste good with a few simple substitutions. Our Blond Brownie recipe was a hit, so now sink your teeth into this revamped cake recipe.